Phobia
by WofOZ
Summary: The reason why Danny has clausterphobia. It's just a mild case but it really doesn't need to be a "thing", does it Steve?


**After last weeks episode it irked me that Danny suddenly had claustrophobia and yet at the end of the episode followed Steve and Chin into the very same bunker he'd refused to go in just a short while ago.**

**I felt there was a missing scene, rather a missing "cargument"/discussion over the situation so I decided to write it in. **

**I've never written a "missing scene" one shot but I'm taking a chance on this one. Hope it works for y'all!**

**Oz**

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The realization hit Steve like a stun grenade to the face. He couldn't believe he hadn't noticed it sooner but now that he had, he felt like a bit of a jerk. With a sigh he gently eased the car to the side of the road, stopped and put on his flashers. After a second, he turned to his confused and bewildered partner in the passenger seat next to him and frowned with all the sympathy he could manage.

"It was the Tico case wasn't it?" Steve asked. Danny just blinked, then blinked again.

"Ah that has to be it! That explains everything!" he replied with an enthusiastic laugh. "What are we talking about?" Steve winced wondering how to gently broach the subject.

"Your... you know... _thing_," he said waving a hand in the air. Danny's smile grew but so to did the look of confusion on his face.

"My... thing?" he questioned. "Babe, I'm going to need you to use your big boy words if we are going to continue this discussion." Once again the Navy SEAL let loose a heavy sigh.

"Your claustrophobia," he said. "It started after the Tico case, didn't it?" Suddenly Danny's cheeks rouged with embarrassment despite the man keeping up a completely innocent face. The detective quickly looked out the window suddenly finding the trees incredibly interesting as he folded his arms across his chest.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he replied. "I've always had an issue with tight spaces, you just never asked. And for your edification, the Tico case just exacerbated the situation a little. I'm fine. Let's get back so we can keep going on this case." Steve didn't budge.

"Okay, first, when you pull out your thesaurus to talk to me I know something's bothering you," he replied. "Secondly, you should have come to me if you were having problems and thirdly, you haven't always been afraid of tight spaces. I've seen you in shipping containers and surveillance vans for hours."

"Thank you Commander know-it-all," Danny scoffed. He turned back to his partner, more confident in his position and raised an eyebrow. "Just face the fact that there may be things about me you don't know... maybe never will."

"_Bull_," Steve spat. Danny's eyes went wide.

"_Bull_?"

"Yes, "_bull_" Daniel. As in _bull crap_, as in after four years of working together you know I had separation issues from my parents when I was a toddler and I know you still cry whenever you watch Bambi," Steve shot back. Danny scoffed and let loose a grunt of consternation.

"It's a sad movie!" he protested. "You just don't see the beauty in anything that doesn't include car chases and body parts exploding."

"Danny," Steve said seriously. "You were locked in that safe for almost seven hours before we got you out." Suddenly Danny's face paled and all humour quickly drained away before he worked his jaw nervously.

"It was nothing I couldn't handle," he said.

"You were unconscious and going into serious shock when we pulled you out... I thought it was because of the lack of air and the concussion but..."

"I hit my head when I tripped in the dark, okay? End of and if it's all the same to you I'd rather not relive it," Danny said firmly. "Now I don't know about you but some of us have paperwork that needs to be done and phone calls to make. Chin and Kono are probably won-"

"What happened in that safe Danny?" Steve asked point-blank. "We aren't going anywhere until you talk to me." Finally Danny turned to his friend and sighed.

"I shouldn't have even been in there alone Steve," he said quietly. Before Steve could protest out of his own guilt Danny held up a hand. "It's not on you. It's on me, you and Chin had the perimeter and I sent Kono back to the car to get the print kit. I should have waited before I went in, how the hell was I supposed to know it was on a timed lock down?"

Steve had to take a second to bring himself back to that fateful day that had given all the members of Five-0 a pretty decent scare. It had happened about four months ago, they had raided the lavish home of a jewel thief who'd stolen almost eleven million dollars worth of diamonds from a local jewellery store. They'd found the guy after an exhaustive search, raided his home and arrested him. Thought crafty and skilled the man, Jonas Tico, hadn't thought to check the street when he'd executed his heist. One lonely taxi had been parked a block away with a security camera on board that happened to be pointed to the street.

Once they'd arrested the man, the search was on for the diamonds and evidence collecting. That had brought Five-0 to the walk in safe in Jonas Tico's house. It was a rainy day so they'd "rock, paper, scissored" it and Chin and Steve had been forced outside.

At the time, Steve had been pissed but after only a half hour of searching the grounds, Kono came sprinting out of the house like a shark was chasing her and barked out that "Danny's trapped!"

Diamonds and evidence forgotten, Five-0 had charged back inside. The door to the safe was so thick that Steve could only just hear the faint thumping from his partner on the other side. It had taken a moment of absolute stupidity before Steve pulled out his phone and dialled his partners number.

"You get yourself locked in partner?" Steve had asked in amusement. However he'd never forget the voice that returned his question. At the time, Steve almost thought he dialled the wrong number.

"Steve..." Danny had gasped nervously. "You gotta get me out of here buddy." The tone had been so fearful, the breaths had been so halted that all amusement for the Five-0 team was instantly forgotten.

As more police and eventually the fire department showed up with the right cutting tools, they were three hours in and Danny wasn't sounding like Danny anymore.

"Is there any chance his airs being cut off?" Steve asked one of the fire fighters.

"Anything's possible," the man had replied. "But we've got a hole at least and we're pumping air in until we can get the door open."

By the sixth hour, Steve was clutching his phone in his sweaty hands as he listened to his partner's ragged breathing.

"Steve... please, _please_... I'm... I'm _begging_ you... _Anything_... I need... I need to get out... I can't... I can't-" The thud that was heard over the phone might as well have been someone stabbing Steve in the heart.

"Danny? Danny! Come on Danno talk to me!" he'd yelled. When no response came, Steve whipped his head towards the guys cutting the safe. "GET THIS THING OPEN NOW!" he'd snarled.

Six minutes later, the door was open revealing their Jersey detective splayed out on the floor. There was a nasty cut on his forehead with a blood mark to match on the corner of the metal table inside the safe. His nice powder blue dress shirt was soaked through with sweat and his normally slicked back hair was a wild mess. Danny had been so pale, his lips so blue that for a second, just for a horrifying, debilitating second, Steve had been convinced he was going to have to tell Grace Daddy wasn't coming home tonight.

But then the paramedics had practically body-checked him into a wall so they could have access to Danny. When one barked out;

"I've got a pulse!" Steve allowed himself to breathe again. However when the same medic then frowned and added; "This guys going into shock, his hearts doing the samba! Bag him and let's go!"

Shaking himself from the memory, Steve brought himself back to the car and the side of the road before looking at his partner again. Danny's face had gotten paler despite the rouge of embarrassment on his cheeks.

"It wasn't bad air was it?" the Navy SEAL asked very carefully. Danny shook his head suddenly appearing extremely exhausted.

"When I was ten, Matty and I would play around this abandoned factory out by the docks," the detective began. "One day, we bring our favourite baseball cards and while I'm holding one of his favourites a gust of wind took it and it flew into an old walk in freezer. By the time I realized the door was closing on me after I bumped it running in, it was too late. The damn thing was old and rusted and once it shut..." Steve didn't say anything when Danny paused and clearly held back a shudder. "It took Matty a half hour of trying before he knew he had to get help. Took him another hour to get home and an hour and a half after that to get my mom and pop there to give it a try. By the time the fire department showed up I'd been inside, in the dark, for four hours."

"Danny... man, that couldn't have been easy for a kid," Steve said with a heavy breath. Waving a hand, Danny shrugged.

"Took the fire guys another hour to cut me out," he explained. "It wasn't that bad but... I've never been able to go into closed spaces since. I didn't even realized I had a problem until I was in my teens. The one good thing about these foliage laden, sand laced islands is that you're never far from open spaces. Hell even some of the hotel lobby's are technically outdoors. It hasn't been a problem since I got here because I've focused on my work and then got outside as soon as possible. I controlled it."

"Until the Tico case," Steve said. Danny fiddled with an invisible thread on his pants.

"Until the Tico case," he parroted. Then with a huff, he worked his jaw and gave Steve a hard stare. "Look it's just a mild case of claustrophobia. You don't need to worry about me doing my job and I'll get over it like I did before."

"_THAT_'s why you didn't tell me there was a problem?" Steve snorted. "Danno... I know it's not going to affect you doing your job, you know why?" Looking confused and curious all at the same time, the Jersey native gestured Steve to continue.

"Enlighten me." Steve puffed out his chest as he turned off his flashers and pulled back onto the road.

"Because I'm never going to lead you into a space I can't fit in," he said. "And if, in the unlikely even that you _do_ go somewhere I can't, I'm going to make damn sure you've got a way out." Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw his friend regain some of the colour that had been lost earlier. Even a small smile had dared cross the detective's lips.

"Using grenades to blow up doors is your specialty," Danny smirked. "And uh... thanks, for you know... not worrying about my "thing"."

"So you can call it a "thing" but I can't?" Steve chuckled glad to hear humour in his partner's voice again.

"Yes Steve, because it's just that, my "thing" not yours so you don't get to call it a "thing"," Danny replied. Then his hands danced to life again, "And for that matter, I do NOT get wordy when I'm worried about something! I simply use my incredible vocabulary to try to get through that thick knuckledragger skull of yours."

"I have faces, you have words and tones," Steve shrugged.

"I have... what? I do not have_ tones_!" Steve just burst out laughing as he slowly tuned out his partner's ranting and raving about vocabulary and the only book Steve's ever read was "How to Kill a Man in 60 different ways."

Later when they returned to the underground tunnel entrance, Steve chanced a glance at his partner who was doing his best not to let on how nervous he was.

"Chin, Danny, let's get this done as quick as we can, yeah?" he asked. Chin nodded as he strapped on his bullet proof vest and while he was distracted, Steve gave Danny a look and a nod.

Danny seemed to straighten up, take a breath and give a nod back. He knew Steve would never let him out of his sight now that the truth was out there. More so Steve knew Danny was, yet again, trusting him with something few others would ever know.

Steve turned to the entrance that was overgrown with roots and vines and cautiously stepped through hearing Chin's footsteps seconds behind. He paused, just for a moment then smiled when he heard two more shoes hit the concrete floor followed by a whispered curse of;

"Secret jungle bunkers suck."

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**So yeah, I think Danny needs a little more love from his partner in this season! Love those "broments"! Ha ha.**

**Well actually... I just love Scott Caan and his character Danny Williams... hmm...**

**And I hope you loved this! Reviews please!**

**Oz**


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